By analogy, the longboats
are “trucks” piled with vegetables, water reeds, or cartons
of the Burmese equivalent of Coca-Cola. Some are “buses” shuttling
workers to plantations. The countless sampans are either “bicycles”
carrying small loads or water taxis. At first we wonder why most native
boats are shaped like string beans or peapods. Finally we discover the
answer: They have to pass each other in narrow “back alley”
canals.

Further along we board
a “textile factory,” where a charming, wrinkled grandmother
weaves top-of-the-line ceremonial robes for Buddhist monks, taking months
to make one robe on her aged, wooden handloom. Her exotic thread is delicately
extracted from lotus stalks by two 20-ish granddaughters. Her daughter,
our hostess, serves tea as we marvel at grandma’s prowess.

After cruising a few
hundred more yards, we dock and, taking off our shoes in de rigueur respect
to Buddha, reverently enter the sprawling, ornate, eight-story Phaung-Daw-U
Pagoda, capped by a 50-something-foot, bell-shape, gold-leaf spire. Inside
are doll- and life-size Buddhas, one of which is adorned with countless
overlapped pieces of gold leaf that men stick on for good luck and as
an act of devotion. We tiptoe among a phalanx of languid cats snoozing
on the floor. A stately, red-robed monk welcomes us in sonorous fluent
English; he’d once lived in Buffalo, New York. He entertains us by
silently commanding the suddenly athletic cats to jump through a hoop
he holds three feet off the floor.

As we exit the monastery,
a 40-foot gondola-like vessel is pulling in, festooned with bunches of
fragrant flowers and streamers of bright multicolored ribbons. Perched
in the stern on a throne-like chair is a nervous but smiling ten-year-old
boy in a regal, gold-emblazoned, white suit. Red rouge on his cheeks and
brilliant lipstick add to his colorful appearance. With crowds of cheering
friends and relatives hovering, he is, with pomp and circumstance, being
inducted into a coming-of-age ceremony, as his gondola makes the rounds
of the canals in his stilt village.

A little farther on,
at a canal junction, we are “captured” by a sampan-armada of
wildly gesturing hawkers, loudly peddling all kinds of trinkets, jewelry,
veggies, Buddha statues, and boat models. After intense haggling, Truda
buys a scale model of a leg-rowing fisherman, which is complete with a
conical fishnet and tripronged spear.

As the finale to our
Inlay Lake expedition, we cruise to a brand new boatel/hotel, the Golden
Island Cottages, which caters to tourists with hard currency. With its
causeway-connected, stilt-array of thatch-like cottages—all air-conditioned—it
blends well into the native architecture. All amenities of a first-class
hotel are here. On its expansive verandah we savor a tasty luncheon while
overlooking the grandeur of the gorgeous lake, its surrounding rugged
mountains, and the putt-putting or silent paddling of native boats.